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President Joe Biden, Gov. J.B. Pritzker, Illinois House Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch, Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle, Mayor Brandon Johnson and the Democratic Party have failed the Black community.
With the stroke of a pen, they could issue executive orders to help provide safe neighborhoods and alleviate poverty, unemployment, wealth inequality, racial disparities, food deserts and other issues that are driving Black people into a permanent underclass status. With an undeclared state of emergency in the Black community, those who are in powerful positions to effect change choose to continue the status quo of symbolism over substance.
The Democratic leaders pay lip service to violence as a “public health crisis” — but they lack a meaningful coordinated plan to secure neighborhoods. They promote economic inequality, as well as dependency, through their decision-making and lack of action.
The Democrats in Springfield are allowing the successful Invest in Kids scholarship program to expire. The program has helped thousands of students from low-income families enroll in good schools. Black leaders have supported the proliferation of liquor stores, pay day loans and corner food stores that serve as the local grocery stores. The lack of healthy food options in the Black community has led to a higher incidence of obesity, diabetes and kidney disease. Last year, revenue from the dialysis industry was $34.5 billion.
The Republican Party is no better as it has ignored Black Americans and lacks inclusion. Republicans’ focus on tax cuts for the wealthy leaves the Black community with no viable option. The corporate media are complicit in prolonging the food fight between Democrats and Republicans — while Black people are dying every day from systemic inequality. Mass shootings in Chicago take place nearly every weekend.
Labor union bosses are duplicitous for they control the politicians and policy. They have failed to fully incorporate Black people and women into apprenticeships and the building and construction trades.
[ Willie Wilson: Unions can help reduce violence in Chicago with apprenticeships and jobs ]
The first enslaved Africans arrived in Jamestown, Virginia, in 1619. Their arrival set the stage for the beginning of slavery in North America. After 404 years of being in America, going from slavery to Emancipation, Juneteenth, Jim Crow laws, segregation and American citizenship, Black Americans are in danger of becoming the permanent underclass, which the media do not report. Does capitalism require Black Americans to be a permanent underclass to be successful? After all, the foundation of the American economy was built by slave labor and enshrined by the law.
In Dred Scott v. Sandford in 1857, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the Fugitive Slave Act and declared that “Negroes,” whether free or enslaved, are not citizens. Chief Justice Roger Taney wrote that they have “no rights which any white man is bound to respect.” Black people were not granted citizenship until the 14th Amendment was ratified in 1868. The legal protection of slavery allowed centuries of wealth to accrue exclusively to white people.
A Federal Reserve study in the third quarter of 2022 found that white households had nearly $125 trillion in assets while Black households had less than $8 trillion. Last year, white households made up 64% of the population and held more than 80% of all wealth measured in assets. A RAND study found that the median amount of savings, investments, home equity and other elements of wealth for Black households in America is around $24,000. In contrast, the median amount for white households is $189,000.
According to a 2022 Financial Health Network study commissioned by the Chicago Community Trust, Chicago’s wealth gap exceeds the national average. Nearly 40% of Black Cook County residents and 30% of Latinos are financially vulnerable. Only 9% of white residents are considered financially vulnerable.
Homeownership is viewed as a way to build wealth. The homeownership gap between Black and white Americans is wide. According to an analysis by the National Association of Realtors, in 2021, about 73% of white Americans owned homes, whereas only 44% of African Americans did. The Hispanic homeownership rate was a little more than 50%. In Chicago, homeownership rates are 35% for Black residents, 43% for Hispanics and 54% for white households.
A 2020 nationwide study by Troup Howard of the University of Utah and Carlos Avenancio-León of Indiana University found that Black Americans pay considerably higher property taxes based on flawed assessment data and intentional overvaluation of homes. Additionally, the Black community was targeted with predatory loans. A study from Duke University says the practice of house “contract selling” in the 1950s and ’60s cost Black homebuyers as much as $4 billion.
In 1973, a government study found “all evidence indicates that the poorer neighborhoods of many cities are being forced to subsidize heavily, through tax payments, the special tax concessions granted to residents of upward transitional neighborhoods.”
How long must Black Americans pay a “Black Tax”?
Black Americans make less money than white Americans but pay more for basic goods and services.
I recommend the following solutions:
1. Pritzker, Welch, Preckwinkle, Johnson and other elected leaders must develop a sense of urgency to deal with Black inequality. Where is their collective plan to reduce racial disparities?
Chicago Tribune Opinion
2. Biden should declare a state of emergency with respect to health disparities as they are devastating the Black community.
3. The Black community must hold elected leaders accountable for their actions and inaction. Democrats cannot win elective office statewide without the Black vote.
4. We must target those elected officials who are not working in the interest of the Black community.
The condition of Black Americans is dire. Without significant intervention, Black people will become a permanent underclass in America.
I write this opinion to make those comfortable with the Black underclass status uncomfortable.
Willie Wilson is a business owner, philanthropist and former mayoral candidate.
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